World To Remain World Of Warplanes-Less Until Nov

Oh what a strange state of affairs. Ours is a world that’s had war since time immemorial and planes since the Wright brothers realized that flapping their arms really hard would only make birds laugh at them, but a combination of all those elements? A World of Warplanes, if you will? That’s apparently a much taller order. The World of Tanks stablemate has been in beta for a decent many months, but it’s still not quite ready for primetime. So instead of revving up for takeoff this month, it’ll stay in the hangar until November.

But what’s going on? Did the developers realize that – gasp – they completely forgot to add planes to World of Warplanes? Are they now hastily duct-taping wings onto tanks? Did Wargaming spend a month meditating in the mountains and return as ConscientiousObjectorGaming? No, no. Nothing of the sort. Instead, this is simply a matter of balance and polish. Director of global operations Vlad Belozerov explained:

“We are committed to releasing a great title and are doing everything to ensure that World of Warplanes gets the final polish we believe the game needs. The extra time will allow the development team to fine-tune the game balance and make sure that every feature is top-notch before launch.”

The new release date, then, is November 12th/13th (depending on timezone). On the upside, all experience gained during open beta will carry over once Wargaming pushes the big red launch button, so records of your most legendary dogfights won’t simply disappear into dust the second an arbitrary date comes to pass.

Who’s been playing this one so far? I have a fair deal of experience with World of Tanks, but I’ve yet to try World of Warplanes. Does it scratch a similar accessible-but-deceptively-complex itch, but with planes instead of tanks? Or is WoWP more of its own animal?